I listened to Ukrainian journalist Anzhela Slobodian as she spoke about the psychological terror she endured during approximately a month of Russian captivity. Today, she is free, but her weeks in Russian detention have left their mark.
Before being branded a traitor by the Russian regime, she worked as a reporter for TV Telethon in Kherson, striving to deliver news even after the occupation began. Russian soldiers burst into her flat, threw a bag over her head, and dragged her to a place she refers to only as a torture chamber. She was held in cell no. 6 and recalls hearing the screams of men being tortured with electricity. One of her fellow inmates died of a stroke, and her male colleagues were also physically tortured.
According to the BBC, Ukrainians in Kherson discovered over 11 torture chambers after the liberation. More than 700 people are missing. Slobodian was among the first to testify before a people’s tribunal in The Hague about how the occupiers treated journalists. The tribunal was established by human rights activists to document these testimonies, even though there is currently no international court that could try Vladimir Putin for the invasion of Ukraine.
"We cannot wait for this war to end; we must gather testimonies so that they do not fade away, so that the defenders of the occupation cannot deny them", says Slobodian.
Many Ukrainian journalists today do not simply perform regular journalistic work; they document crimes against humanity. They record the stories of the deceased and mark graves on maps so that families can one day hope to pray over the remains of their loved ones.
Slovak MEP Luboš Blaha and PM Robert Fico never address the details of the war, nor the nuances of peace. When they speak of Russia, they refer to a country shaped in the minds of their voters by communist propaganda.
They never talk about the Russians whom Vladimir Putin had killed for their criticism of the regime and their differing opinions.
They do not mention Boris Nemtsov, who criticised Putin’s stance on Ukraine and was murdered just a few steps from the Kremlin. Nor do they speak of Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer who exposed widespread corruption in the Russian state apparatus and died from abuse in a Russian prison.
It is highly unlikely that Boris Berezovsky, a former oligarch and later a critic of Putin, committed suicide in his London flat. Alexander Litvinenko, another critic of Putin, died from polonium poisoning in London.
Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova, a human rights lawyer and journalist, were murdered in Moscow after documenting war crimes in Chechnya. Of course, how could we forget Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who uncovered corruption? She was shot dead on the stairs leading to her own flat.
Blaha constantly suggests that anyone who criticises Putin and calls for the isolation of Russia is a Russophobe. Of course, he is not being original. Russophobia is commonly used as a label for critics of Putin’s regime who question specific actions taken by the autocrat.
The Russians who suffer for criticising Putin certainly are not driven by hatred towards Russia. Even Garry Kasparov, the former chess grandmaster and well-known critic of Putin, argues that criticism of Putin can be a form of solidarity with those oppressed in Russia.
Blaha and Fico are not concerned about those Russians who suffer for criticising Putin. After all, Slovaks who criticise their prime minister are also not viewed as good or useful citizens. It is only a matter of time before the term Slovakophobia finds its way into Fico’s vocabulary to describe criticism, for example, from the European Union for undermining the rule of law or destroying press freedom.
This article was written in the framework of The Eastern Frontier Initiative (TEFI) project. TEFI is a collaboration of independent publishers from Central and Eastern Europe, to foster common thinking and cooperation on European security issues in the region. The project aims to promote knowledge sharing in the European press and contribute to a more resilient European democracy.
Members of the consortium are 444 (Hungary), Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland), SME (Slovakia), PressOne (Romania), and Bellingcat (The Netherlands).
The TEFI project is co-financed by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.